not sure about the rules for translating work. At the moment I'm doing both, teaching and translating. Not sure if I want to do translations full-time though, it gets a bit lonely after a while and I do love my serious German engineers!
Have applied for a job at 2 universities and am waiting to hear back. That would be nice, steady contract work with a pension and sick pay (lovely!) Will also be starting an MA in Language Teaching and applied Linguistics at one of the universities in autumn. So, things are changing.

Tina23, I don't think the rules are the same for translators but can understand it's not fulltime work for everyone. I didn't know you could do an MA in Language Teaching and applied Linguistics in Germany - I assume you do mean in English. There are a few international universities in Germany where the language of instruction for all majors is English so perhaps you mean one of these ones. Anyway all the best for your studies.

I don't think they do, well, I certainly don't!
But for me it's more a case of seeing teaching as a "normal" job over here, not this all-consuming thing it was in other places. Like having friends who are not teachers, doing completely unrelated stuff (like sailing!) at the weekends, things like that. Do you know what I mean? I love my job, but it doesn't dominate my social life over here, the way it did in Riga.

But yeah, the taxes and the red tape still suck. But at least I don't have to depend on my boss to manage all that for me, which makes me feel a lot more independent and less at the mercy of some chain school.